If I Followed You
by Threepwillow
Summary: Kurt goes back to McKinley. Blaine comes to him, because Kurt deserves it, and because maybe Blaine deserves it too. :::Oneshot, Kurt/Blaine, lovelovelove to Counting Crows:::


_**i. if your name was jude**_  
>It happened – not so much quickly but, well, weirdly.<p>

They were all swinging through Warblers rehearsal, a medley of oldies that they'd had in their repertoire for ages for when they went touring around the nursing homes, just trying to fit in the new guys. (Kurt had actually scored a pretty coveted Jackson 5 solo.) Wes had pulled Blaine, Nick and Allen aside to work through a weird bit of choreography that he wasn't feeling when Blaine heard Kurt sigh in frustration and turned to see him pulling out his cell phone.

Wes frowned. "Warbler Kurt, you know we don't allow phonecalls during rehearsal."

"I know, I know, but she's called four times in the past five minutes, it might be some kind of emergency – yes, Mercedes, _what_?" He rolled his eyes.

But then Blaine heard the loud, jabbering way Kurt's friend sounded from the other end, and then he watched as Kurt's face fell blank and still into something like horrified disbelief.

"I'm sorry," said Kurt, "_say that again?_"

He was already heading for the door to the practice room, slowly at first but definitely picking up speed. Blaine darted to follow him, worried for the worst, but Kurt shook his head furiously and mouthed "Stay."

"Your dad?" Blaine mouthed back.

Kurt shook his head no again and vanished out the door.

Blaine stood staring for a moment afterward, a little dumbfounded. It was so strange, because Kurt didn't seem tremendously _upset_, but whatever Mercedes said had obviously thrown him for a loop _somehow_. Kurt never missed Warblers rehearsal for anything.

Soon he turned, and headed back in to the rest of them. "I hope that turns out all right," he said softly.

The rest of the Warblers were just kind of staring at him, and finally Jeff sputtered, "Aren't you going to see what's wrong?"

Blaine frowned a little. "He told me not to."

David, of all things, _laughed_ at him, and shook his head. "Blaine, he _obviously_ needs you right now, whether he thinks he does or not. Him saying no is just him trying to be selfless – him being _Kurt_."

"I dunno, I just..." Blaine trailed off.

"Dude," said Nick, "you are _so_ bad at this boyfriend thing."

When everyone else was making pretty much the same face at him, Blaine frowned a little deeper, and headed out the door.

So that's how Blaine got where he is now, hovering outside the door to Kurt's dorm room, trying to talk himself into knocking. Doing the _boyfriend thing_. And yeah, that's still weird, and he _is_ kind of horrible at it. But damn if he isn't determined to get better.

He knocks.

No answer. He can hear faint television noises from the other side of the door but no word from Kurt.

He knocks again. "Kurt?" he murmurs. "It's me. Can I – can I be part of this, please?" when he still doesn't get a response, Blaine tries the knob, and to his surprise it turns. Inside, Kurt's buried in his blankets, still in his uniform. He looks – oh, he looks like he's been crying. Even the hint of red ringing his eyes has Blaine's throat closing up with sympathy tears. Anyone crying does it. Kurt crying does it _hard_. Blaine walks to him, biting his tongue as he waits for Kurt to make the first move. When he sits softly on the mattress his hand looks for Kurt's on autopilot, but it's lost under his comforter somewhere.

Kurt takes a huge breath and Blaine feels his own kind of falter. "Karofsky came out."

Wait, _what_? Suddenly, Blaine can see exactly why Kurt reacted the way he did back in the practice room. But when he opens his mouth to speak, Kurt gives the smallest shake of his head, and Blaine knows - if he interrupts, if Kurt can't just plow through the whole thing, he'll never finish.

"He t-tried to ask Santana to prom, but she said she was either going with Britt or going stag – or, well, I th-think she said 'gazelle.'" He chuckles a little, but there's no mirth in it, and the sound kind of breaks Blaine's heart. "So he c-called her a – a name I won't repeat –and told her she _had_ to go with him – and she said absolutely _no_, and shoved him. So he sh-shoved her back. And she said he couldn't do that because it was a h-hate crime against Latina women – " (it's a lot more than that, thinks Blaine, starting with _assault_, but he keeps quiet) – "so _he_ said she couldn't shove _him_ because it's a hate crime, and she said 'what, against big dumb white guys?' and he said 'against big _gay_ white guys'!"

Okay, whoa. This isn't just "Karofsky came out;" this is "Karofsky flung the doors to the closet _wide open_." Blaine remembers so little about this guy, remembers Kurt's _hurt_, remembers _he's not coming out any time soon_, and then...this.

Consider Blaine corrected.

"Mercedes saw the whole thing," says Kurt, bleakly. "A _lot_ of people saw the whole thing. I think – I think Jacob Ben Israel _taped_ the whole thing. This is crazy, Blaine. It's so...it's so crazy."

His hand on the bed between them finally finds Blaine's, and its desperate clutch says everything. Everything he hasn't been saying this whole story. Which is really just one thing.

"You're going back to McKinley, aren't you." He doesn't even ask it like a question.

"I don't know!" Kurt wails.

"Kurt – "

"I had my family of friends there," he sobs out, tears welling afresh, "I had glee, we're going to _nationals_ but there was hate and fear and total stupidity and no _you_." He tries to tug his hand free, but Blaine holds tight with both of his, so he uses the other to do his best to wipe his eyes. "And you're here, and I have friends and glee here too but then there's tuition and the flatness and the _uniform_ and I love – everything and I hate – _e__verything_ – " It's nothing but sobs now, and Blaine sniffs hard, swallows even harder. Seems, suddenly, incapable of letting go of Kurt's hand at all, even when Kurt heaves himself forward into Blaine's chest and flings his other arm around his shoulders.

"Sshhh," he murmurs. "Shh."

"Blaine," he sputters out.

They sit like that, for a while, and for that while Blaine can let himself imagine that he is Kurt's world. That they spin through a life where Kurt would always choose him, that he can assume that of _course_ Kurt would choose him, that there's no other choice for Kurt because there's no other choice for Blaine. (Because there _isn't_.) But all of Kurt has always been about picking all the options he wants, about being able to _choose_, straight tie, bow tie, blue scarf, yellow scarf. Whatever _fits_ best; and Dalton, even with the Blaine...alterations, it's never fit. It's crooked on Kurt's axis and spinning in reverse, out of time, half a beat wrong.

"This is so crazy," Kurt says again, when they've finally wound down. He sits back up and wipes his eyes. "I guess I've always – my important things, they were family, and music, and fashion. And then – _y__ou_. And here at Dalton I have two, you know? But McKinley...has three."

"Can't beat those odds," Blaine says. He knows he sounds miserable, and he's fooling himself if he thinks Kurt won't notice. He sees right through him.

"Three point five, though?" says Kurt. "I'm not – oh jesus christ I could never – this isn't the _end_ – "

"Just an intermission?" says Blaine.

Kurt kisses him, slow and soft and pretty disgusting. They're a mess, the two of them, and Blaine's pretty sure that's why Kurt is pulling away and trying to stand up.

"Look at me," he says with a pitiful laugh. "We're missing practice for this?" And sure enough, he heads to the en suite bathroom, leaving Blaine alone in the room, the TV still running quietly in the background.

He turns and looks at it, surprised to see faces he recognizes – but then not, remembering a sappy conversation, _I always put on that DVD Mr. Schue made when I need a good cry, weddings ruin me._ Burt Hummel's face is staring so, so beautifully at Carole, Blaine almost loses it again too, and he says, "_There she is._"

"Oh," whispers Blaine with faint fondness, "there you are."

"_Go get her._"

"_Oh,_" says Blaine.

Horrible, at this boyfriend thing.

But definitely getting better.

_**ii. if your shoes fit me**_  
>Blaine pulls the baseball cap down further over his brow, takes a deep breath and ducks into the building. Geez, it's kind of enormous. Dalton is big, but Dalton is built big, like it was always supposed to be that big. McKinley, for lack of a better term, just seems kind of obese. Like a mosquito, swollen with too much blood, drained mercilessly from those few people within it who actually have too-big hearts and wow, Blaine, stop getting metaphorical and watch where you're going. E Hall, second floor.<p>

God this was easier with Kurt beside him.

Better get used to it.

As time before the bell runs out, the swarm of the hallways gets more and more ridiculous, and at least once Blaine gets jammed hard into a solid wall – he can't tell if it's accidental or intentional. Finally, though, he sees his goal ahead, and when she shuts her locker he is standing there waiting.

"Hey, Mercedes, it's me."

She squints, and then her eyes go wide as saucers. "_Blai_ – "

"Sshhh!" he hisses, clamping his hand over her mouth. "No scenes – I know, I know, it's _me_, spare me." He pulls his hand away once he's sure she's not going to shout. "But Kurt doesn't know I'm here and I'd kind of like to keep it that way."

"You'd better hope his fashion senses don't go off, then," she says, giving him a once-over. "And he told me you said _he_ was a bad spy."

"Look, are you gonna help me or not?"

"With _what_? What in the hell are you doing here? Can't you go two days without seeing him?"

"I need, uh, some tips," he says, "about an audition."

"Ooohkay, I'm flattered, but also super-creeped right now. Why the secrecy? Why not just ask Kurt?"

"A New Directions audition."

Mercedes's mouth gapes open and his hand tenses, ready to silence her again, but she catches herself this time. "And you haven't told him?" she hisses. "If you were gonna come here, why didn't you just come with him last week?"

"It took some...negotiating," says Blaine, tugging on his skinny tie. ("Negotiating" being code for "a two-hour passive-aggressive-off with his father.") "So now it has to be a surprise. And kind of an apology and a promise and about fifty other things besides an audition. You're Kurt's _best friend_. What works?"

She sighs, shifts her backpack, and finally gives him this kind of look. "_You_ work," she says. "Boy is stupid in love with you. If you can pick a good song and throw in a little Blaine magic, Kurt is set. As for what works at New Directions...you do know that it is _not_ what works for the Warblers, right?"

"Trust me," says Blaine, letting himself be a bit sullen, feeling his eyes darken, "that's been made _crystal_-clear."

"Well, good. I'd hate to be late to class because I was wasting my time with a _total_ idiot." She pauses. "Everything usually goes over great if you play an instrument."

Blaine perks. "I play piano."

Mercedes shakes her head. "Brad's _real_ particular about his keys. Besides, you gotta be able to move around. Finn tries to serenade Quinn or Rachel from behind the drumset and shiz just gets awkward."

"Well I can't really do violin and sing at the same time."

"Guitar always goes over pretty well. Sam, Puck, Artie – "

"I didn't say guitar. I said piano and violin."

"And _I_ said guitar." Mercedes tugs a corner off a piece of paper in her notebook and starts writing something on it. "Puck still owes me a favor for tipping him and Lauren off to that kosher bakery downtown. If you call him up, just tell him I sent you, and you got yourself some guitar lessons."

Blaine looks down at the number on the paper, very confused and mildly horrified. He looks back up to the face she's making and _mildly_ turns to _quite_.

Guitar lessons from the member of New Directions Blaine probably _least_ wants to spend one-on-one time with.

_Awesome_.

Mercedes finally leaves him to go to class for real, and Blaine does his best to retrace his steps out of the building (and only gets turned around the wrong way twice). There's a science classroom with a big observational window set in the door on the first floor, and when he walks past, he sees Kurt sitting in the front row, right next to Finn, both of them making their best "bored out of our minds" faces. Kurt has on this vibrant shade of green that Blaine thinks, maybe, he's never seen him wear before, and it makes his skin look an even pinker-cream in contrast, makes his eyes looks greener too. His presence in the room looks so – _n__atural_, like even though he's miserable it's the kind of miserable he's built to endure, the pain that can make people beautiful. (He's _beautiful_.) That they went to school together for months and Blaine never saw this...that alone cements in his head that this is all the right idea, the secrecy, the _negotiating_. Kurt deserves to live in a world where he looks like that. And if it can make Kurt look like _that_, well, what could it – what could it do for _him_?

Yeah, that he could get used to.

(By the time he can see Kurt's _eyes_, though, seriously, Blaine figures maybe he should stop pressing his face up against the glass of the window, before he gets caught.)

-xxx-

When a little girl – well, not _little_, but littler – answers the door at the house he's been instructed to come to, Blaine almost turns around and leaves.

"Did you come to see Noah?" she says, looking him up and down. It takes Blaine a few moments to process – Puck, Puckerman, Noah, _right_ – before he answers.

"Um, yeah," he says weakly, hefting the weird battered guitar case to a more solid position on his shoulder. "He's here, right?"

"Are you his boyfriend?" she says suddenly.

"What? No! I – "

"I _knew_ it!" she cries. "I knew he was gay. _No_-ah, I knew you were – "

"Shut up, twerp, I'm not gay," comes a voice, and soon enough it's followed by a person, heavy-treading Puck thundering down the stairs right by the door. "I got to second base with a chick before I was your age. Besides, he's already _got_ a boyfriend. Ugh," he says as he comes to stand behind her. "I dunno where she gets these idiot ideas from."

"_You_ have a boyfriend?" she says, still staring analytical-eyed at Blaine.

Blaine thinks about it – sees Kurt's smile, Kurt's eyes, a pale and mouthwatering glimpse of Kurt's bare shoulder – and grins. "Yeah, I do."

"Go finish your homework," Puck says, turning her bodily and shoving her back into the house. It leaves Blaine on his porch and Puck in the door way all alone, and Blaine kind of does that nervous throat-clearing thing.

"Hi," he says, trying desperately.

Puck rolls his eyes. "Get inside. Up the stairs, to the left." Blaine follows his instructions and Puck is right behind him and then soon they are alone in his _bedroom_ and...this is even weirder.

"Look, I think you're stupid," Puck tells him.

Blaine's a little put out. "And why is that?"

"Because," says Puck, leaning on the closed door, crossing his arms, "I've been playing guitar since eighth grade and I still don't claim to be the best at it. Or, well, I do claim to, but I'm not." He crosses toward Blaine, and Blaine backs away, because Puck's bigger than him and this is _weird_, until eventually he falls to sitting on the edge of Puck's bed. But Puck just sits beside him. "Here you are, you're trying to do all this by the end of the month, _and_ you expect it to wow Schuester and the rest of those music nerds. You're an _idiot_."

"I don't appreciate your negativity," says Blaine, because, well, _ow_, quite frankly. "I've got a goal in mind and I'm taking steps to achieve it, I can't do anything more."

"Hold up, nancy boy," says Puck. "I said you were stupid, I did _not_ say I wasn't gonna help you with your plan. I dig on the balls this took, man – I mean, in a total no-homo kinda way. And you're doing it for the dude you love, which is like, double balls. Triple balls because it's Princess Hummel."

Blaine raises an eyebrow at him. "Maybe your sister's right."

"Look, shut up and get your guitar out. If you're only coming on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we gotta go overtime."

_**iii. if you were a girl (and I was too)**_  
>He gives up on his homework and throws it off his bed in a heap, flopping sideways onto Kurt's lap in defeat.<p>

"Conjugate for me," he whines, because seriously, why did he take Latin 3 and _why_ does he have to copy these things over and over and _over_? "You're so good at it, French is a romance language, right?"

"Now you're just making things up," says Kurt, patting his head like he's a dog or something. "You've got, what, four more verbs left? Don't be dramatic."

"_Seven_," Blaine corrects, "_seven_ verbs, and my hand is cramping up." He lifts it up to illustrate, and he can't uncurl it from the clawlike shape it's stuck in, a little from writing but mostly from fingering guitar chords for at least twelve hours out of the past ninety-six. Before he knows it Kurt has his lizard-hand in both of his, touching his skin like he's afraid it'll break.

"Honey what did you _do_?" he says, trying as gently as possible to unkink Blaine's fingers, the pads of his thumbs rolling at the center of Blaine's palm.

"I picked up guitar this week," he confesses – Kurt has told him at least twice that he's a terrible liar. "It's...hard."

"Is this like when you tried to get Leon to teach you how to backflip and you gave up because you couldn't get it in a day?"

"Hey, don't patronize me," he says, fake-pouty – but then, "_oh_, and do that again." Some weird crunch-twist of Kurt's fingers in his felt _amazing_ and Blaine is dying, suddenly, for more.

"Oooh," Kurt says with an interesting lilt in his voice, and Blaine is suddenly very nervous - but the knuckles of his pinky slide firm up through the tight crook of Kurt's thumb and forefinger and he kind of...forgets anything he was going to say about it. Kind of forgets _everything_.

Kind of moans. Maybe.

"That's..._oh_," he says, and Kurt moves over to his ring finger, where the joints are even stiffer and the pain is even more exquisite. It strikes Blaine, suddenly, how painfully intimate this is. His head is in his boyfriend's lap, his boyfriend is massaging his hand in a kind of ridiculously erotic way, and neither of them are asking a single question about it. There's no "is this okay," no "what does this mean" or "is this working for you." Just a smile, slowly taking permanent root on his face, and Kurt's fingers tangling in his until his breath is hitching, too, and he shifts a little under Blaine's ear, and there's so much _trust_ that Blaine almost feels bad about keeping this whole McKinley thing a secret from him.

Almost.

"Wanna make out?" he says, feeling his hot breath seep over into the denim of Kurt's thigh.

Kurt drags his long, deft fingers out across Blaine's a couple more times soft-skinned but hard-pressured, cool on his heat, and then leans to whisper in his ear. "Thought you'd never ask."

Blaine smiles lazily and slowly lifts himself up, climbing over Kurt until he's pressed back against the pillows below him and Blaine can start with his mouth at Kurt's neck, nibble up to his ear, tease around to his mouth. He sucks slow and hard on Kurt's lower lip before slipping his tongue inside. Kurt's mouth is insanely soft under his, even his twisting insistent tongue that probes tentatively back at Blaine's, trying to find the best fit, the sweetest spot. His cool, solid hands come to rest heavy in the small of Blaine's back, and for a thick, sweet, hazy hour, they lose themselves completely.

When Blaine finally comes back to Earth his lips are tingling numb but still smiling, tie mostly dislodged, head lolling back adjacent to Kurt's off the side of the bed so his room is upside-down. His hand, clutched in Kurt's on the bed between them, is back to normal. "Mmmm," he chuckles out, "you're really good at that, too."

"I don't settle for mediocrity," says Kurt, smugly. He shifts suddenly, rolls over on his stomach, reaches down for the explosion of paper on Blaine's floor. "Wait," he says, "_this_ is the song you're learning? This in the past week?" He lifts up Blaine's sheet of guitar tabs and Blaine tries not to feel absolutely miserable. _Crap_.

"Maybe?" he says.

"No wonder you're so stiff. A, these are some weird notes to work through, and B this song is _awful_." He throws the papers back onto the floor and shifts to roll on top of Blaine, smiling, teasing. "I don't know who's dumber, you or whoever's teaching you."

Blaine doesn't even hesitate on that one. "My teacher, _definitely_," he declares, before craning his head up and taking Kurt's lips in his own again.

His teacher, mostly.

But also a little bit his infuriating muse.

-xxx-

"Well, Mr. Blaine Anderson," says Rachel, as she eases the lid off her cup to suck up a little of the frothy cream inside. "To what do I owe this impromptu encore of our last spectacular experience as a romantically linked couple?"

"Rachel, I'm just buying you coffee," says Blaine. "And – let's hope this doesn't go the way of that time. I need help with Kurt."

"Is your fledgling boymance on the rocks already? Having observed the relationship dynamic between my two gay dads my entire life I feel like I'm in a reasonable position of authority to – "

"_No_, Rachel," he insists. She's already even more mile-a-minute than usual – maybe giving her caffeine was a bad idea. "No, I'm just looking for a song choice."

"Another one of my absolute specialties!" she says, clapping her hands decisively together. "What was it you had in mind, exactly?"

"Something easy for my newly-acquired guitar playing skills...ish," he says, dunking his biscotti, twisting it, thinking. "I'd started with Hey Jude but it just sounded – wrong, and Mercedes agreed with me."

Rachel nods all-knowingly. "Definitely. Besides, Kurt's kind of cornered the market on the Beatles as far as New Directions is concerned. After his tear-jerker rendition of I Wanna Hold Your Hand last semester it's become kind of his go-to and it would be unwise to touch." (Blaine, carrying Blackbird still in the deepest parts of his heart, can't help but agree.) "Next?"

"Well, so I'd sort of landed on Kiss Me, sold myself on it, but then Kurt found my tabs and kind of ruined the surprise, so I'm at square one again."

"For the best," says Rachel, shaking her head. "While I can fully understand any proclivity you might have toward homosexual love songs, the couple Sixpence None the Richer is singing about in that song are clearly a pair of lesbians, and I feel that would be entirely unproductive. Plus, Kurt hates that song."

Blaine eyes her very, very carefully over the rim of his cup as he takes a long and uncertain sip. "I'm just going to pretend that all the things you just said actually make sense to me."

"Oh, please do," she says, waving a flippant hand, "everyone else does, it's much easier that way. Have you considered something a little less direct?"

"Like...?" Blaine gestures at her.

"Well, I think I've got the makings of an absolutely perfect idea," says Rachel. Almost rodentlike, she burrows into her purse and retrieves her shining pink iPod, scrolling for something. "If I've pinned this correctly, the guitar part should be fairly simple, it should highlight your voice like a dream – this _is_ still an audition, of course! – and I know for a fact it will get your message across in a touching emotional way without being too heavy-handed." She lands on the song and hands the earbuds over to Blaine, smiling self-righteously. "Naturally you'll want to do the Counting Crows version."

Blaine lets the song wash into his head, the smile washing over his face in almost perfect synchronization. He wonders, for a second – though he'd never in a million years admit it – what he ever did without Rachel Berry in his life, and figures it was probably a lot of Top 40. By the chorus his heart is pretty much soaring, like it always seems to do in such an embarrassing way when Kurt's involved, and Rachel across the table is smug as hell. By the bridge, fortunately, he's got an idea that's definitely going to take her down a few pegs.

"The backing vocal in this is pretty perfect for your voice, actually. Is that beyond the scope of your – helping?"

Rachel snatches the headphones from him instantly and it almost hurts. "It most certainly is!" she yelps. "Rachel Berry sings backup for no one."

"Okay, that's ridiculous, because I'm pretty sure I saw you backing Sam and Quinn _and_ Santana at sectionals," he says, rolling his eyes. "I swear, one of the first things I'm gonna do in New Directions is try to convince you all of the benefits of working together as a choral unit, regardless of what part you're filling. You shouldn't knock it till you've tried it."

"Don't get preachy with me, mister. Need I remind you who is going on to nationals and who is not?"

Blaine groans. "_Rachel_..."

"Look, _the_ Rachel Berry does not play second fiddle for just anyone," she informs him, her withering gaze kind of...withering. "I'll have you know that I'm not doing this for you."

"Ugh, fine," he says. Maybe he can ask Mercedes...

She shifts her gaze, and her coffee, with a bit of nervous hesitance. "I'm doing it for Kurt."

She lifts her cup toward him, and with a small smile blossoming, he lifts his too, clunking them together in a dull plastic toast.

"For Kurt."

_**iv. if you went by taxi**_  
>Several times Blaine has sort of seen everything in his life with Kurt in a set of beats, like their entire existence together is trapped inside the experience of music and the two will never split. (There he goes with the unnecessary metaphor again.) There was the beat at the beginning, when Kurt came to him, standing on his (<em>metaphorical<em>) doorstep like the lost confused little animal he was, and Blaine took him in and needed, _needed_ to make him safe. There was the faltering beat where Kurt fell in love with him, the one Blaine miserably seemed to miss until it was too late, and they had trodden on toes and gone backward too soon so that beat three, when _Blaine_ fell in love with _Kurt_ and the whole thing started to move back in the other direction like it was meant to, hit Blaine like the most ridiculous sack of bricks, like a dance partner that swings too hard until you're dizzy and yet somehow the dizziness feels so good that you don't even care.

And now, to complete the cycle, Blaine steps backward again, and Blaine comes to Kurt.

The man he has come to know as William Schuester – big heart in the right place, sometimes at the very wrong time, cheesy smile, nice hair – claps him on the shoulder just a little. "You ready for this?"

"As I'll ever be," says Blaine, which is about the truest answer he can give.

"Well, all right then." He opens the door to the choir room, but holds up his hand for Blaine to wait outside. "Least I can do is give you a proper introduction."

So Blaine waits for his cue, hand clammy on the neck of his brother's old guitar, waits until he hears _"a latecomer audition who's very excited to be here – not just riding our coattails to nationals either! Everyone please welcome him warmly!"_ – and then he walks in, too.

Mercedes grins. Puck smirks. Rachel absolutely _beams_.

Kurt gawks, and before he can get a word in, Blaine makes himself start.

_"They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot,"_ he says, strumming the guitar weakly, making himself smile. _"With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot."_

Someone, somewhere along the line, starts a group clap, and everyone but Kurt joins in. Blaine would almost take a moment to marvel at how in-sync their only-mildly-organized chaos can be if he weren't so transfixed by his boyfriend, who is transfixed by _him_, in this never-ending cycle that bolsters his confidence more than any other amount of encouragement could. His fingers find the strings more surely, and he travels around the room, engaging everyone, Finn, Tina, Santana, but never taking his eyes off him, and how could he, when he's by far the most precious, captivating thing in the room?

_"I don't wanna give it, why you wanna give it, why you wanna give it all away?"_ Blaine asks, Rachel joining in flawlessly from her seat, doing this, no matter what she says, _for Blaine_. Here at this school, where good people with too-big hearts do good things for one another, for no reason, just because they can and they should. Here at this school where every face Kurt makes, shock, disbelief, outrage, suspicion, fond condescension, fucking _love_, is beautiful.

_"Listen late last night, I heard the screen door slam,"_ he says, _"and a big yellow taxi took my baby away."_

Blaine stands here, between Kurt, Brad's piano, and the rest of the universe. _"Don't it always seem to go,"_ he sings into Kurt's eyes, _"that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?"_

Kurt shakes his head like all of it is still too unreal for him, and Blaine is almost tempted to agree.

_"They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot!"_

(Almost.)

When the song ends, he hands the guitar off to Schuester, stands in front of his boyfriend, and extends him his hand to shake.

"Can I ask you a question?" he says. "I'm new here."

Kurt grabs his hand, yanks Blaine into his lap, and doesn't let go.

-xxx-

After Blaine's audition, the rest of practice is pretty uneventful. Sam and Rachel test out a couple of duets for nationals but find nothing substantial, and Lauren cons Brittany into giving her all her "defective" M&Ms that have Ws on them. When the clock hits 3:30 and practice is over, Blaine's anxious to go find his locker, and he leaves fairly quickly, hand in hand with Kurt, _still_.

But they only make it a few steps down the hall before Kurt stops him. "Blaine..."

"Yeah, babe?"

"What are you doing here?"

Blaine sighs, and turns fully, to face him head-on. "I'm doing what I should have done three weeks ago."

"You can't just – follow me here."

"I just did."

"No, Blaine, you had so much going at Dalton, and things are _so_ different here, you have to – "

"Have to what? Have to ignore the one thing that has made me more than just – _p__assably happy_ in a really, really long time? Ignore the way this has transformed you, and never imagine how much it could transform me too? Have to try to be the same person I've always been in the wake of such a – a _change_?" He takes both of Kurt's hands in his, worries about guitar calluses vs. moisturizer, marvels that he even _would_ worry, forgets it just as fast. "Everything about you changes me, Kurt. For the better."

"We're not going to..._be_ here, the way we were there, Blaine," he says, like it's a warning, which is – kind of awful. "Even with Karofsky out, everything here is going to _suck_."

But Blaine just shakes his head. "But it's _not_. Because – look, I'm pretty sure that one time, this incredible person told me that he had four things that were the most important things to him, and those things were family, music, fashion, and – and _me_. Somehow. And so I think - if that's what he wants, I think that someone that amazing deserves all four."

With all his might, Blaine kisses Kurt, his boyfriend, right there in the halls of their high school, and nuts to how they're _going to be_. He loses breath fast, loses his balance even faster, because it's dizzy and intoxicating and it's all the perfect things in the world. Blaine never wants it to end, _ever_, and he knows somehow that in that moment Kurt feels exactly the same.

Unfortunately, it does end.

Pretty catastrophically, when a tidal wave of green-apple slush blasts them both in the face at the same time, all streaming from the same cup, caught in Blaine's eyelashes and Kurt's ear and the collars of both their shirts. It's a pretty miserable experience; it may actually be one of the worst sensations Blaine has ever felt. And the look on Kurt's face, revulsion and loathing and, most painfully, shame, is only making it worse.

So Blaine refuses to accept defeat, and just smiles at him through the mess.

"Yum," he says, grinning stupidly, making it infectious.

Kurt catches it, and mouths back _"Courage,"_ before diving in for more. They let the corn syrup roll across their twisting tongues until it melts and disappears, licking clean little stripes across each other's cheeks and jaws, and _kissing_, like they really deserve. Like they'll keep doing, no matter what, no matter how many slushies they take for it.

Better get used to it.


End file.
